Meet the Speaker: John Mueller of Google

No, this is not an elaborate MnSearch April fools prank. This is really happening. We are super excited to for the first time be hosting an event with a representative from Google’s Webmaster team! You’ve got questions and this is the time to get your answers.

Join us this month on April 26th to get the insight track on what you need to know about things going on at Google and participate in an extended Q&A session!

And prior to the event, we want to help you get to know a little bit about our speaker joining us via Google Hangout from Switzerland. So keep reading to learn about our marquee speaker coming on at the end of the month, John Mueller from Google.

John Mueller

1. What can attendees expect to take away from your MnSearch event on April 26th?

I’d love to catch up with the folks watching in with regards to what Google has been seeing & working on when it comes to web-search recently, roughly where we’re headed, and what you can do to stay ahead of the curve. There’s lots of time for your questions too, so I invite you all to take advantage of the session!

2. What is the biggest mistake that you see organizations still making in 2017?

It’s hard to pinpoint a single item, and these are somewhat timeless. I see three topics come up again and again:a) Avoid becoming too stagnant & not listening to your users. The web is amazing and offers exciting opportunities to those who are willing to step up and do something fantastic, but it’s also extremely fast-moving. Keep an eye open, listen to your users, think about what you can do to make it easier to experiment on your websites, to make it easier to stay on top of changes in technologies, usability, functionality, and content for your users. For example, more and more people are using phones as their only internet device, how are you taking that into account?b) Avoid assuming users already know you. This is an issue I see coming up with regards to search regularly: someone might have a really nice looking website, but for an outside (for a search engine too), it can be unclear what it is they’re actually offering. Find people who don’t know you, and ask them what your website should be found under in web-search — sometimes that can be eye-opening.c) Avoid using technology for the sake of using technology. Being agile is fantastic (see above!) but make sure the new & fancy things you’re implementing still work, both for users and for search engines. A simple & straightforward way to check is to use our Mobile-Friendly Test or to use Fetch as Google in Search Console. Googlebot is getting better and better at dealing with modern websites, but double-checking ahead of time is important too.

3. What career advice would you offer for digital marketers today?

Always question your assumptions!

4. Besides Google, what is one topic of discussion that you could talk about for hours on end?

All things Internet 🙂

5. What is the best part about working at Google?

I find it fascinating & inspiring to be together with so many smart & passionate people who are all pushing to improve the Internet in different ways, looking at how information can be organized and made more accessible to those who can use it. I love how this makes it possible for small businesses to do their own, special kind of “magic,” and to make it available to their potential customers worldwide.

6. What Google tool/app/function do you feel is a “hidden gem” that people may be missing out on using?

It’s unrelated to web-search, but I really love the “Scan” functionality in the Google Drive app on my phone. It’s so easy to scan a document, print a clean copy, and to be able to find it in Drive based on the contents of the document. It’s like magic.

7. What advancement in technology are you most excited about in the near future?

I like to tinker with small electronics devices like Arduinos and Raspberry Pi’s — it’s cool to see the general availability of tiny electronics devices that can do what large computers used to be needed for. I don’t know where that’s headed, but I can run a large website over wifi with a computer the size of a ping-pong ball, and I don’t even need to be an expert to do that. What are the challenges that come along with that? It feels like it’s mostly a matter of someone coming up with the right ideas, and not with them being possible. I can’t wait to see where it’s headed!